Browsing Posts tagged warden

Warden Melody of the undergrowth is an adventure game very much in the style of old zelda games but released on the pc so you don’t need to own a nintendo system to finally play a similar adventure. The game is set over a persistent world where all changes you make stay in the world no matter if you travel to another area or play in another day.

The story revolves around the boy prince being trained and suffering an accident where he falls into a river and is washed up ashore lost and trying to find his way home, he is awoken by nyona who charges him with the task of being the next warden, protector of nature and to stop the king changing the world forever and destroying the balance of nature, but things might not be as they seem as you realise through the story progressing there are two sides to every story.

Along the way you uncover former wardens ghosts who have the ability to take hold of fabians body and then grant new powers and abilities to solve the puzzles. Mostly these powers are used to gain access to new area’s previously off limits, sometimes they just open shortcuts and are a requirement to defeat the boss of that area.

I will suggest that there are a lot of secrets that are never explained through the story progression and there are definitly area’s that were off limits and impossible to figure out how to get into, along with a seemingly pointless completionist task of lighting every single lantern and torch in the game which perhaps upon completion grants something special but I never completed this task. Also there are a plethora of seemingly pointless hats that perhaps when worn in the correct way with the right weapon and warden allow you to talk to the shadow beings you can “Sense” in certain circles, however if you fight them they are gone forever from the world, which could perhaps lead you to never being able to complete everything, unless of course simply eliminating every sense being much like pixel hunting in hotline Miami leads to a greater secret being unlocked such as an extra area or a modification to the ending it’s hard to tell from what is revealed in the game, and while some games like spelunky do this well with a hidden secret until the community finds it as a whole this is something I would like to be able to be uncovered through in game discovery as it feels more like something you should be able to ask in game characters about or find special in game lore that uncovers the secrets.

Having said that though the game itself is really good and definitely a lot of fun and I would recommend 100% that you use a controller as there are points where precise platforming would be required that would be a lot more difficult on keyboard and mouse. I myself put 12 hours into the game with my playthrough with a little exploration and discovery of secrets but mostly on a linear path to the ending as much as the game allows as there are progress gates which require a specific number of motes to be collected, which can lead to going off to find and collect the larger collectables in order to progress so it’s a good idea to collect any you go past on your playthrough if you want to avoid backtracking throughout the game. Travelling between area’s has a convenient fast travel system via a dream world by campfires so this isn’t as awkward as it might otherwise have been.

There are three main area’s all of which have their own guardians and their own unlockable warden forms with individual powers to help traverse the world, and the bosses of each area usually involve using that skill in some form to defeat that boss, and then obviously a final confrontation with whichever final boss you decide to go against, as nature and humanity clash. Your choice however is final as once you defeat the final boss returning to try and do things differently is impossible due to the global nature of in game elements and returning leads to a black screen of death glitch.

I still feel like there’s a lot I didn’t discover and a lot more to unlock with those hidden secrets and all the maths and translation puzzles I didn’t complete, but the in game lore and information about these tends to be lacking so knowing for sure what these would do for you besides complete achievements and give you a sense of completionism is something you would have to discover for yourself, but I do feel there are a few area’s I couldn’t gain access to, with the sewers and perhaps in the hat room, and outstanding lore with the witches who perhaps created the crystals which locked down nyona in the first place.

I would recommend the game and you’ll have plenty of fun with it exploring the game for yourself, the combat feels good and not too easy or too difficult and there’s always something else to do.